Sunday, July 16, 2017

Putinist Fascism Not an Ideology but Rather a Set of Criminal ‘Understandings,’ Yakovenko Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, July 16 – Vladimir Putin’s
fascism, the first “post-modern” fascism, is able to include under its banner
so many radically different people because it is not an ideology – no basic
text could be prepared about it – but rather a set of “understandings” like
those which govern criminal subcultures, according to Igor Yakovenko.

The Moscow commentator begins by
pointing to the collaboration of three radically different Russian activists –
Aleksandr Prokhanov, Mikhail Leontyev, and Maksim Shevchenko – on propaganda in
support of Putin’s criminal aggression in Syria. The only thing they share,
Yakovenko says, is that they are all fascists (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=596903ED9F970).

Prokhanov, he points out, “is an
anti-Semite, an anti-liberal, ‘the last soldier of the empire,’” who longs for
the Soviet imperial past and deifies the terrorists of Hamas. Leontyev, in
contrast, is a “super-radical liberal,” and Shevchenko “doesn’t like Israel”
and considers Hamas “an analogue of Christian democracy.”

All three are fascists, the
commentator says. To be sure, this is “the special fascism of a contemporary
type – Putinism, the first fascism in post-modern history. It can’t be called
an ideology or a philosophy or a religion.” It doesn’t have “a system of views”
that could be printed in a book like Mein
Kampf or the Short Course.

An analogous book “under the title ‘Putinism’
is impossible because if one tries to find the commonality which unites
everything that goes into the term Putinism, one will discover that there is no
system of views.” Instead, there is a set of “’understandings’ like those which
the criminal world has developed that create a parallel subculture opposed to
that of normal people.”

“The ‘understandings’ of Putinist
post-modern fascism are organized in trinities: each of which helps the
Putinist fascist to correctly arrange his relations with a specific part of the
world,” Yakovenko says.

With respect to the outer world,
this trinity is “Imperialism-Militarism-Nationalism.”
These are the fundamental values of Putinist fascism, the notions that allow
its followers to divide everyone into “ours” and “not ours.”And that has some important implications that
are often overlooked.

“A Putinist fascist can be
simultaneously a Tatar, Chechen or Jewish nationalist. That is his private affair
… ‘nationalism as a hobby,’” as it were. But he must subordinate that to “Russian
nationalism of the imperial type.” (Other kinds of Russian nationalism are
alien and that is why Putinists suppress them.)

As far as the thought processes of
Putinist fascists are concerned, they too are based on a trinity: “Irrationalism—Eclecticism—Traditionalism.”
That puts their views inside the definition of fascism Umberto Eco offered two
decades ago, Yakovenko says.And it too
explains the superficial diversity of the Putinist fascists.

“A Putinist fascist can be an
atheist or an agnostic, but these personal shortcomings should not … be put on
display.That is because, the
commentator continues, “the correct fascist of the era of the post-modern must
be Orthodox. Otherwise, he is in some ways an incorrect fascist.”

And Putinist fascism defines its
relationship to other value systems by yet another trinity: “Anti-Westernism –Anti-Humanism—Anti-Liberalism.”Those come together in this variety of
fascism’s homophobia, “in essence, the chief and if you will only clearly
defined pretence of Russian fascism to the West” and those who support Western
values.

“The homophobia of [Russian]
politicians is easy accepted by the mass consciousness of Russians, above all
as a result of the deep penetration in this consciousness of the culture of
prisons. In a country, where 25 percent of adult males have been behind bars,
it could hardly be otherwise.”

According to Yakovenko, “the
principle distinguishing characteristic of present-day Russian fascism is that
its leader, Vladimir Putin, never declared, never wrote, and never said aloud
certain of the dogmas which have just been enumerated.” He is “not the author
of the text of a book with the title ‘Putinism’ or ‘Russian Fascism.’”

Instead, the Kremlin leader is “the
producer of spectacles in the course of which on the scene under the title ‘Russia
and Its Neighbors and Those Further Afield’ are created an atmosphere of
fascism and a completely fascist policy is carried out.”

If this process is to be stopped,
Yakovenko concludes, then “all thinking people in Russia and in the entire
world must understand Putinism is
Fascism” and having understood must respond in an “adequate” way.”